DISCLAIMER: I neither own these characters, nor think they'd stick around long if I did. I haven't been making money off of them, and I haven't been keeping them locked up in my room for my own personal pleasure. Much.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written for The Alliance of Men and Elves slashfic contest.
The smells of salt and turpentine were in the air when Aragorn emerged from the shadows of a grimy inn. He was none too sparkling himself—his hair hung in lank strands like it did back in the days of the Fellowship, and a mixture of blood and sweat had trickled and congealed sometime before morning, leaving a salty metallic rime around his mouth and in his beard. He leaned heavily against the cornerpost of the inn, waiting for the dusty street and the world beyond to settle into manageable spinning.
"You've been drinking again."
Aragorn winced, barely managing to stifle a groan.
"You ought not to be out where your subjects will see you, my liege," chirped a small man in black and white livery who materialized out of the alley at Aragorn's back. "You know how they do talk…"
Aragorn wanted to tell the birdlike little man that he didn't care what they thought; he didn't care if they knew he was drunk or bleeding and hadn't cared for some time. He wanted to say to the man, "They know! How could they not know after all these months? And do they care? Does it even matter?"
But he said nothing and let his manservant bundle him in an all-concealing cloak and lead him, as steadily as was possible, up the long cobbled road to the palace in Minas Tirith.
* * * *
"I don't want to go."
"My liege, you must! This is a dinner with what Elves are left in Lothlorien!"
Aragorn's laugh sounded brittle in his own ears. "Elves. You want me to dine with Elves. They have all gone west, Beregrond, have you not heard?"
The servant's hands were less than gentle as he hauled Aragorn from his seat by the fire, though his voice maintained its usual level of decorum. "Oh no, my liege, they're not gone by any stretch of the imagination, not at all. Why just last spring the delegation from Rivendell arrived, don't you remember? And they said…"
It doesn't matter what they said, Aragorn thought as heavy robes, ever the concealers of a hard night out, were fastened at his arms, his neck. All the Elves who matter—they are gone.
In the great hall Arwen would not meet his eye, and he would not seek hers. He took his place at her side with a deal more stiffness than that gleaned from weary bones, and wondered if the smattering of Elves noticed the space kept between the king and queen. Probably not. Probably the poor scraggly waifs in their thinning silk were too bereft to spare a care for an errant mortal. Ah, but what they didn't realize was that they were all in the same boat, in the end. They might as well be mortal for with the loss of their rings. It was all so funny. So terribly, terribly amusing. Aragorn stifled a laugh, doubting the Elves would see the humor in the situation. He wondered why he bothered.
"…thought it prudent to attend to trading agreements, given the amount of time that has elapsed since our last diplomatic measures…"
From far off Aragorn gathered that the Elves were saying something. Trading agreements? Ha! What could they possibly have left to trade? No matter. Whatever it was, Arwen would take care of it. She took to her status as queen more than she had even taken to him. Which suited him just fine.
"…in accordance with our woodland kin…"
All right. It was definitely time to break out the wine. But when Aragorn reached out for the decanter at their end of the table Arwen reached it first, never taking her eyes off the lecturing Elf, beringed finger closing about the bottle and sliding it well out of Aragorn's grasp. Curse the woman! Couldn't a man whet his thirst in his own kingdom?
With a triumphant glare in her direction Aragorn shoved his chair loudly across the floor tiles, preparing to make a most unkingly lunge across the table for the prized decanter. But before he could carry through with his plan, a few more of the lecturing Elf's words percolated through his sodden, sulking consciousness.
"Our informant, the former Prince of Mirkwood, advises us to continue—"
Aragorn choked on nothing. "What?" he blurted, oblivious to the daggered look Arwen shot at him.
The Lothlorien Elf frowned. "To continue exporting our cloth for maximum—"
"Not that, you fool, about—about the Prince."
"Former Prince," the long-nosed Elf correctly promptly, casting a questioning glance at Arwen, whose face was pasted with a smile fit to shatter mirrors.
"No matter, is he here? In Middle Earth? Did he not go to the Grey Havens?"
The head elf shared another one of those infuriatingly long looks with Arwen before responding. "He…never made it to the Grey Havens."
Aragorn lurched, catching the table for support. "He's dead, then?" he rasped.
"No." To everyone's surprise it was Arwen who spoke this time. "His father, Thranduil, intercepted him and disowned him."
"Why?" Aragorn gaped.
"No one knows." Arwen's faintest of smirks said she did. "But he left his father in disgrace. Which makes me wonder why, after being turned away at the Grey Havens, he finds sympathy with the Elves of Lothlorien." Her gaze fell coldly on the motley contingent.
"Oh, Lady, I assure you—" began the head Elf from Lorien, but Aragorn didn't hear the rest of the reply. As soon as he regained his faculties he broke into a run, decanter and Lothlorien alike forgotten as he made his stumbling, crashing way up four flights of stairs and endless corridors to the cramped tower he called his own. Once there he slammed the heavy oaken door shut and barred it, then stared around the bleak room as if expecting to find answers. His eye lit on the neck of a bottle peeking out of a pile of royal finery and he grabbed it, sucking every last drop before hurling it out the window.
So he was in Middle Earth. Sweet Elbereth, Legolas was in Middle Earth and Aragorn hadn't even guessed it! Why hadn't the Elf come to him? Or sent him a message, or something? Surely he knew…gods, he must have known how Aragorn wanted him! He was an elf; they were supposed to be intuitive about these things!
Frantically Aragorn searched for another bottle. Questions, so many questions…he slumped against the wall, feeling the sun's heat through stones that failed to warm him. What was it that blathering diplomat had said? Something about not being a prince anymore…why? What could Thranduil possibly have against that gorgeous son of his? The dirty bastard, if he hurt dear Legolas' pride…
Aragorn moaned into the garnet glass of the bottle he'd found stuffed under his mattress. It didn't matter, did it? It didn't matter how much he wanted to protect Legolas, extol his virtues to his father; to rip that shimmering silver silk from his body and—
No. It most certainly did not matter. Because if it did, Legolas would have found him. If the Elf had known Aragorn's affections, he would have made contact somehow. Unless…
The thought hit Aragorn so hard, even the sweet burning of the bottle couldn't purge it from him.
Unless the Elf had known all along, and didn't think Aragorn worth the trouble.